Alicent Hightower: my thoughts (positive)

If you’ve been with my blog for a while, you know my thoughts on Alicent when watching HOTD weekly was less than forgiving. I really didn’t like her or the choices she made. There were moments where I did give her some grace, but not enough. In watching the first season again in a binge format, my thoughts have changed quite a bit. Is she perfect? No, nobody in this show is. She’s not evil though. She’s simply a girl who was groomed into this role, following the patriarchy. She knows no different and even then, there were moments later in the season where she expresses that she knows she’s been used and manipulated all this time. She says, “What have I done but what was expected of me?” and that really hits close to home for me. When I first saw that scene I was only focusing on Rhaenyra. I never truly saw Alicent’s side of that. In that moment she broke and you can see the regret when she realized she’d actually hurt who used to be her best friend. You see that regret again later when she sees the scar on Rhaenyra’s arm. Even when she made the move to put her son on the throne, she thought that was her husband’s dying wish and she refused to allow anyone to harm Rhaenyra or her kids. Part of me feels that Alicent and Rhaenyra maybe could’ve worked things out to some degree if Lucerys hadn’t died the way he did. Basically, she’s a complex character and I didn’t take the time while watching initially to really understand her. Ultimately I was too harsh on her and she’s an interesting character to follow when you think critically (which I was not).